Poem 'Flatland'

Flatland

Out on the Fen, Viking named

but Roman Straight, potato clamp

and piles of bulbs frill the muddy

roads and droves

Across the iron hard fields,

'tis starvation' this past week

and a Russian wind to boot.

A sickly sky sends sleet and snow

to bend the knavish eel man to his traps.

The beck he roves is a silver slice

across the fen where Coot and Moorhen

coddle chicks against the prowling Pike.

Sedge and Rush could hide

a man like Hereward

and acres on the ground are

the equal of the towering sky

and even mighty Boston Stump.

The flatlands are where black topsoil

three feet thick meets the water;

salt and fresh, to feed a nation.